🤔 IMAGINE A MAGICAL PLACE where you could introduce children to the Beautiful Game! What would it look like to you? Mines 👇

🤔 COACHES, do your players review your coaching? Do you have a development plan, created with your players? Or does information only flow in one direction.

⚽️ COACHES, where is your players focus at training & during matches? Is it avoiding dangers, like being shouted at, told off, intimidated, abused, embarrassed etc, they’ll struggle to perform & definitely won’t learn what your trying to impart. What’s your environment like?

❌ THEY LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES, is a true statement! Why do they learn from their mistakes?

🚚 HOW IT STARTED VS how it’s going! This was us all trying to fit all of the inflatables & equipment into our car on our on boarding day. Now I thankfully have a van to make life much easier & carry around even more equipment!

💬 SHARE, OUR WORD OF THE WEEK! Here are my thoughts on sharing & how I think we often get it wrong.

🕰️ LEARNING TAKES TIME, you need to allow your brain to grow the neural networks required for the desired skill or knowledge. How much time do you allow for learning something new? How much of what you coaching is sticking for matches?

😱 I GAVE UP COACHING for over 11 years when I moved from the USA back to the UK. 9 years stateside & it was not fun anymore, a relentless focus on winning. It ate away at me! Now thankfully I can focus on the child & developing their love of the game in fun environments!

🙅‍♂️ I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS, I love them! I am so excited for our Football Fun & Development sessions this week. I can't wait to welcome all the children along and have some fun-filled sessions with plenty of laughs!

👀 DO WE NEED TO TEACH SCANNING or can we simply Inspire, Enable & Support children to learn the art of scanning. After all our brains scan for danger all the time, can we hone this for sport? I believe we can!

⚽️ WHY DO COACHES wait until the end to play matches at training? Arrival matches offer so much; - It’s the reason the children play - Allows us as coaches to give each child a warm welcome - sets children up for next activity How do you start training?

🤔 WHAT DOES AN EFFECTIVE YOUTH COACH look like? What can I expect to see at training? How do I know if a coach is effective, what’s your criteria?

🤔 THURSDAY THOUGHT, as a coach, if you believe we all learn in different ways, then you’re already at a disadvantage! Ask yourself, ‘Do I know how we learn?’, the process our brain uses & the changes that happen within our brain.

😁 I LOVE CREATING ENVIRONMENTS for children to play football with smiles on their faces. We are slowly seeing less and less of these environments in youth football.

🚨UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT! Most 1-2-1 football coaching is not effective for learning. Meaning it is definitely not value for money! There are some exceptions, but not many. Change my mind!

👶 WEEKENDS = TOTS TIME! Where we introduce children 18m - 5yrs to the beautiful game, in our giant inflatable pitch. Seeing the smiles on adults & children’s faces make it all worth while.

🤔 FOOD FOR THOUGHT, when picking a football team, do you lean towards; A: Pick the best players available & fit them into positions. B: Pick the best players in each position even if they are not one of the best players.

👶I LOVE OUR TOTS SESSIONS, what better introduction to football than in our football paradise. The children love our inflatable pitch!

⚽️ COACHES, want your players to become more effective decision makers? Restrict space & time rather than touches. Limiting touches, limits the number of decisions to be made.

⚽️ HOW DO YOU DEFINE an effective coach? For me, it’s a coach that enhances a child’s ability & desire to learn. P.S this isn’t done with drills, it’s done by you as the coach!